Tag Archives: marriage

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Worst. Gift. Ever.

June 7, 2020 Rivergirl 45 Comments

Have you ever given someone a gift and had cause to regret it?

I’ve lived with regret for the past few years and felt the old twinge again yesterday.

At first I looked outside and thought how nice…

The husband is trimming a tree.

And then I saw the gift I’ve lived to regret.

He wasn’t trimming branches off the tree, he was cutting it down.

Why?

I don’t know.

Because it was there… and he could, because I’d given him a chain saw as a birthday gift.

Whatever the reason, it’s gone.

Or at least part of it.

And if he thinks he’s leaving this abomination on our lawn he’s sorely mistaken.

Chain saws.

Worst. Gifts. Ever!!

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Serves me right for asking.

June 6, 2020 Rivergirl 37 Comments

But ask I did.

I asked the husband to replace the mailbox post that was listing at a 45 degree angle and threatening to fall into the ditch every time the postman made a delivery.

But replace is not a word my husband easily embraces.

Instead….

He fixed it.

And saw absolutely nothing wrong with his repair.

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Baby barn progress.

June 4, 2020 Rivergirl 26 Comments

So work continued on our project from Hell.

Trim completed, we started shingling the back half of the roof….. and if you know anything about the baby barn?

You know it wasn’t going to cooperate.

Oh, the first row was perfectly level.

Unfortunately…. it was also 5/8ths of an inch short.

If you’ve ever done roofing, you know what a nightmare this is. Tiny little strips of shingles had to be cut for every row and you can’t put them at the end. No, that would be too easy. They had to be tucked somewhere in the middle so it didn’t screw up the pattern… which meant cutting one other shingle on every row as well.

Time consuming? You could say that.

It literally took us all friggin’ day to do the back half of this little roof.

Okay, so the fact that the husband bought the wrong size flashing at Home Depot the night before (because he went without me and therefore to the wrong store) and then had to go back to Home Depot to return it the next day and get the right size flashing (again without telling me and therefore to the wrong store ) and because Home Depot doesn’t sell the right size flashing ( we’d bought the right size flashing across town at Lowes a month ago ) he also had to take a trip to Lowes.

The moral of that lengthy run on sentence? Tell your wife before you go somewhere so she can tell you you’re wrong. It will save you time and aggravation….. and she’ll thoroughly enjoy it.

No, that ridiculous waste of time didn’t help.

Of course, yours truly telling the husband he should have checked with me first didn’t help either…. but you know I had to.

Needless to say I put some physical distance between us after that comment.

I’m not sure the big barn porch was far enough, but at least it was out of hammer strike range.

So progress was slow, but it was progress.

And here’s a picture of a spider carrying off a dead fly….

Just for variety’s sake.

And then finally it was done.

But I didn’t get a picture because I was inside cooking dinner.

Hey, you’ve seen one crooked baby barn roof, you’ve seen them all.

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And we’re back.

June 1, 2020 Rivergirl 25 Comments

Baby barn work commences…. again.

And I have to ask – are we the only ones who take a year to remodel what is in essence a small shed?

On second thought, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.

So we’ve moved around to the back half to finish our utterly favorite part…..and by that I mean the hellish nightmare that is angled trim work. I believe we’ve established we suck at this and not wanting to break tradition, we still do.

How badly do we suck?

I’m glad you asked.

Badly enough to require shaving corners with less than modern tools if you’re my other half.

What….

You mean 1940’s saws aren’t still viable members of the tool arsenal?

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Yes, that’s always my reaction as well….

But the husband says it still has life left in it.

Corners were turned…

Though not all of them where they should be…

As the poppa barn ( who’s still screaming for paint and agrees with River how wonderful he would look in a nice rusty red with white trim ) looked on in horror.

To be continued.

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Nailed it.

May 30, 2020 Rivergirl 11 Comments

While adults are complaining about being shuttered at home with spouses….

And wondering if their favorite bar stool at the local pub is lonely with out them…

(okay, that might just be me)

1ssunr

The little people are suffering too.

No school, no play dates, no adventures.

The grand daughter of our heart is getting a kick out of receiving snail mail so along with cards to let her know we’re thinking of her….. I send a small gift now and then as well.

First was a cute little upside down teddy bear drinking glass.

But I think the second one was a bigger hit.

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Yup.

Nailed it.

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No hole too small.

May 20, 2020 Rivergirl 20 Comments

Maybe I should rethink that title…. don’t need the porn spammers dropping by again.

Anyway, after we planted our free trees the other day we had to do something with this under performing flowering plum that was now ruining the alignment.

We planted 2 of these before the big barn construction began, but one died and the survivor gets eaten alive by Japanese beetles every year. I was all for heaving it, but the husband had other ideas.

When my mother died in 2014, she was cremated and I planted some of her ashes with a lovely tulip tree in our backyard.

tree 2

It did well for 4-5 years until we had crazy late spring freezes and frosts that it couldn’t tolerate.

Since I planned to replace it this year? Husband decided to do a little transplanting.

I (very helpfully) told him we’d need a bigger hole since we were moving a mature 12 year old tree with an extensive root system. With this (ever so helpful) advice, he did what he always does….. and promptly ignored it.

Digging up the plum was an absolute nightmare. The roots were thick and deep and under the topsoil? Hard clay that might as well be cement.

Our farming neighbor offered to come over with his backhoe and scoop it right up, but no.

The husband didn’t want to tear up his lawn and went with the spiderweb approach to removal.

It took us approximately two hours of digging and tugging and even then we ended up chopping what had to be 10 foot long roots.

Whoever said gardening isn’t a workout needs to be bitch slapped.

This photo caught the other half gasping for air after the last pull.

I had serious doubts the hole out back was large enough, but away we went.

Yeah, not quite.

There was a lot of twisting. And turning. And laughing. ( Okay, that was just me. Husband didn’t find it the least bit amusing. )

Some quite inventive spiderweb root trench digging later……

He made it work.

Whether it survives is anyone’s guess.

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Health or bust.

May 6, 2020 Rivergirl 20 Comments

In the midst of a viral apocalypse, it’s hard not to think about your health.

Am I safe? Will I be infected?

And if so, should I be binge watching Netflix… or picking out a granite color and font?

Thankfully I’m a very healthy person. One might say boringly so.

I’ve never broken a bone.

I’ve never had the flu, an ear infection, strep throat, the measles, pink eye or a cavity.

I still have my tonsils, appendix and wisdom teeth.

Until I was 48 years old, I’d never had the chicken pox either.

And trust me…. when I caught them from the husband because he came down with shingles?

I was not a happy camper.

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No, those aren’t pimples….

And if you think it sucked having chicken pox as a kid? Try doing it when you’re almost 50. It’s not only Hella uncomfortable…. but dangerous to boot.

Matter of fact, it was such an oddity to present at that age, all the doctors and nurses stopped by the exam room to take a peek.

You know all those times in your life when it was nice to feel special?

That wasn’t one of them.

But aside from that week of polka dotted misery, I’ve been blissfully healthy.

Heck, I’d never even been in the hospital until a few years ago…. and naturally, everything that could go wrong?

Did.

Quite spectacularly.

Because if you’re going to screw something up?

My motto is don’t do it halfway.

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The last batch.

May 1, 2020 Rivergirl 22 Comments

But really, how can you not love these art re-creations?

Look at that woman!

Having her husband’s head on a platter has simply made her day worth living.

The nose is a little less spectacular, but okay.

Wow.

Im not sure which is more disturbing, the original or the remake.

Is it me…

Or does that guy look like George Harrison’s Indian guru from the 60’s?

Art imitating life, or life imitating art?

Either way…. that man is slaying it.

And now, the final picture.

Which couldn’t be any more relevant if it tried.

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We are definitely not mathematicians.

April 30, 2020 Rivergirl 11 Comments

On a gloomy, overcast Sunday morning….we started putting trim board on the baby barn at 9:00am.

At 10:00am we were still on the first piece.

And yes, at 11:00am we were still there as well.

Frustrating?

A wee bit.

Cutting angles is not our forte….. and it almost made me wish I’d paid more attention in 7th grade geometry.

A lot of serious thought, planning… not to mention cursing…. was going on right there.

And before you say “Use a mitre saw!”, we did. But the building is less than straight and square and when we finally did manage to get it right?

It was still wrong.

Thank God for flashing. It covers a multitude of sins.

So this side looked good.

But when we turned the corner?

Not so much.

How the Hell did that happen?

There was only one solution.

Sit on the big barn porch and photograph it from far away.

Yes.

Much better.

More flashing, more nightmarish trim board.

And if you’re asking what I contributed to the project?

Besides acting as a general gopher…. because when the husband is up his tools are down, and when he’s down his tools are up… my contribution was this: